PROBLEMS AND
SOLUTIONS – PART 3
By Larry Matheny
In two earlier sessions
I recommended conventions and agreements to solve difficult bidding problems. In this session I am going to suggest
solutions to problems that may or may not involve conventions. To solve some of the problems I simply
recommend adopting better technique or eliminating some bad habits. As always, there is often more than one
solution.
1. BLACKWOOD BLUNDERS
Blackwood is one of the most used,
over-used, and mis-used conventions. It is
meant to be used only when you KNOW you want to be in slam and want to make
sure you are not missing two aces. If
the response to 4NT doesn't answer your question, then you probably shouldn’t
have used it. See how you would have
done with this hand.
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In the first auction South rushed into slam without a first or second round
diamond control. West quickly cashed two
tricks and North was very unhappy. In
the second auction, South realized that he could lose two diamonds as well as the
ace of hearts. He initiated a cue bidding
sequence and discovered the partnership had no top diamond control. Holding a small doubleton in an unbid suit is
a danger sign so remember, if the question is WHICH aces rather than HOW MANY
aces, Blackwood may not help.
2. DON’T FORGET
THE TRUMP QUEEN
Many players are
now using the Roman Keycard Blackwood convention. This treats the king of the agreed suit as an
ace which is quite valuable. The
convention has another feature that is also very helpful and that is the queen ask. Here is a hand that demonstrates the power of
this wonderful tool.
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Again we have two
auctions. In the first, South
understandably went ballistic when his partner first opened the bidding and
then raised his spade suit. South jumped
into regular Blackwood, discovered they were missing only one ace, and bid the
slam. Losing a diamond and a trump
trick, they were disappointed with the result.
In the second auction,
South also leaped to 4NT but this partnership uses Roman Keycard. The 5
response showed one keycard was missing but South continued and asked about the
queen of spades. When North denied
holding that card, South decided that being in a slam off a keycard AND the
queen of trumps was not a good idea and signed off at the five-level. The queen ask is a very valuable feature.
3. MINIMIZE YOUR
LOSSES
Most players are aware
that matchpoint scoring rewards the largest plus score. With this in mind you try for overtricks,
choose major suits over the minors, and so forth. However, the opposite is also true; you
should keep your minus scores as small
as possible. This hand makes that point.
Scoring: Matchpoints
(Pairs)
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Pass |
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West led his fourth best spade and you can quickly see there is no way to
bring home nine tricks. So win the first
spade and lead clubs. West wins and the
defense soon has five tricks to defeat the contract. Why is this hand of interest? Because several of the South players tried
taking a diamond finesse or playing for the remaining hearts to divide 3-3. Those declarers went down two and sometimes
three tricks. Those declarers who took
their defeat gracefully accepting down one were rewarded with an above average
score. When your contract has no hope,
minimize your loss.
4. FAILURE TO MAKE PENALTY
DOUBLES
Almost
everyone uses the negative double to uncover a fit, but far too many players
fail to use it to punish the opponents.
Here is an example hand.
E/W
Vulnerable
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Two
important things must happen here: 1)
North must Pass in tempo. He should not
squirm and tell the world he has long hearts, and 2) South must reopen with a
double. This does NOT show extras, it is
the part of the negative double convention.
Instead of playing a partscore or bidding a thin 3NT, N/S can pick up
+1400 (maybe more) by defending this doubled contract. West limped away from the table saying “But,
I had 14 points and I had to bid”.
East’s reply was drown out but it sounded like ”Only three more
rounds…only three more rounds”.
5.
FAILURE TO BALANCE
I keep putting this problem in my lessons but I don’t think enough
people are listening. The great player
Zia has said “The most important thing in bridge is to push the opponents to
the three-level”. Some may argue this
point but I do feel that
the failure to balance loses more matchpoints than perhaps any other reason.
In its simplest form, you should rarely allow the opponents to play at the two-level when they have a fit. So many players do not understand this. Here is a typical hand:
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Pass
Pass? |
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Let’s look at the
numbers. N/S can make 2
for a score of +110. E/W will be down
one trick in 3
for -50. Even if 3
is doubled (unlikely), -100 is still better than -110. If N/S take the push to the three-level, they
will be -100. E/W can lose only by
Passing.
This type of balancing
opportunity comes up in almost every session of bridge. It is important to remember that it is only
safe to balance when the opponents have found a fit. It they don’t have a fit, it’s likely you
don’t either. Your partner must
understand that you are also bidding his hand. Your main goal is to push the opponents to the
three-level, nothing more.
6. IMPROPER HAND EVALUATION
The 4-3-2-1 point system we use to evaluate our hands is not
perfect. It assigns too much strength to
the queens and jacks and undervalues the aces and kings. Still, it does give us a good basis with
which to begin as long as we add judgment.
For example it is usually right to discount queens and jack in the
opponents’ bid suits and the location of our honors is also an important
factor.
For
example sitting in the South seat this hand starts out as a standard 13 point
hand:
KJ2 
Q93 
A765 QJ5
But, after
this auction:
West North
East South
1
Pass 2 Pass
2
However
the auction continues it appears most of your honor cards are well placed for the opponents. This hand of course proves nothing yet does
show how the auction can help you in the evaluation process.
Here is a
hand where a player stopped and really listened to the auction:
Scoring: IMPs
(Teams)
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This North-South partnership uses a double to show either the majors or the
minors. After East redoubled to announce
his side held the balance of power, South ran to 2
hoping North held the minor suits. But
North followed with 2
showing the majors so South took a preference to 2.
He was expecting the opponents to double
but instead heard his partner raise. South
looked at this weak hand and was going to pass but stopped to reflect on the
auction. After hearing the 1NT opening
and East showing strength, North still was inviting game. South knew that his partner must hold a really
strong major two-suiter and quickly realized the importance of the king-queen
of hearts and his third spade. He
accepted the invitation but was very nervous to see the dummy. West won the two minor suit aces and continued
with another diamond. South ruffed this
in dummy and played a heart to his hand. He then led a spade to dummy's king
followed by another heart to his hand. A
second spade toward dummy was won by West. He forced dummy to ruff another minor suit
card after which South drew the last trump and made his contract. At the other table, North-South ended in 3
making four and South was heard to say: "But, I only had five
points".
7. IGNORING PARTNER’S SIGNALS
We are on
defense approximately half of the time yet too little time is spent discussing
our agreements. And, even when we have
solid agreements in place, they are often ignored. Here is an example of very poor defense.
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South is declaring 4
after East opened the bidding with 1
. West led the queen of hearts and East quickly
saw that a club shift at trick two was needed so he discouraged with the deuce. That should have been a huge red flag to his
partner but West was so pleased he won the first trick and without a great deal
of thought, he continued with a second heart.
Declarer was able to eventually discard a club on the fourth diamond and
wrap up his game. If West had taken the
time to look at his partner’s signal and then look at dummy, he would see that
any diamond loser was unlikely to go away but a club trick might. Therefore he would switch to a low club and after
winning two club tricks, East would cash the ace of heart for down one.
8. LACK OF CONCENTATION
Defense can be difficult so we need
to give it our full attention. When
dummy hits the table we go to work. We
count dummy’s points, our points, and anything the auction has told us about
the other two hands. We also look at
each suit in dummy and decide now which card we are going to play when it is
led. We don’t wait until a card is
called and then hesitate trying to decide whether to cover. Defense is hard work and if you relax, you
lose.
Here’s a hand where a defender’s
focus was somewhere else:
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Pass |
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West led the fourth
best in her longest and strongest suit. East
won the ace of spades and returned the six as West followed with the deuce. Declarer could only count eight tricks (1
spade, 2 hearts, and 5 diamonds) and since the lead of the spade three followed
by the two promised a five card suit, declarer knew he was in trouble. His only chance was to catch a defender
napping. At trick three, declarer led a
low diamond to dummy's jack followed by the ten of clubs. East wasn’t going to let that pass and smartly
(?) covered with the jack. Declarer's king of clubs was his ninth trick.
What happened
here? East was so determined to play the
right club card she didn’t stop and think about the entire hand. As soon as West followed with the deuce of
spades at trick two, East should KNOW declarer started with only two
spades. Lack of concentration costs a
lot of matchpoints and IMPs.
9. EXCESSIVE
SIGNALING
Once new players learn
how to signal, many of them go crazy.
They want to show count, attitude, and suit preference at every
opportunity. They forget the opponents
are receiving the same information they are sending to their partner. Here is a suit I recently had to tackle:
A1075
J862 94
KQ3
When I played the
king, West played the 6 and East the 9.
On the queen West followed with the 2 and East contributed the 4. Now I didn’t have to believe them of course,
but I judged them to be players who had just learned to give count. So I played the 3 to the 10 and brought in
four tricks. Neither opponent realized
what had happened. It was on to the next
hand for more signaling.
Here is a slightly
more complex hand but the problem is similar:
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Knowing there were at least four hearts in dummy, West led a low spade. East won the queen and the defenders quickly
had the first four tricks. On the last
spade, East couldn't resist discarding the nine of clubs and West promptly
shifted to that suit. Declarer also noticed the discard and decided to believe
it. South could count eight tricks if
the heart suit behaved and saw a possible squeeze position if East held long
diamonds. So declarer rose with the ace
of clubs and followed with the king and ace of hearts. When East showed out on the second round, it
was easy to finesse West for the jack of hearts. On the fourth heart, East had a real problem;
he had to come down to four cards and couldn't keep a diamond guard plus the
club king. No matter what he discarded,
South had his ninth trick.
With no other information, declarer would probably have taken the losing club
finesse so East should have discarded a low diamond on the last spade. East could see that declarer only had eight
tricks (4 hearts, 3 diamonds, and 1 club) so he had no reason to tell the world
he held the club king.
10. THE RULE OF
ELEVEN
There are so many
rules in bridge. Many are used to
determine if a hand should be opened and others are used on defense. The Rule of Eleven has been around for a long
time and is very helpful but too few players use it effectively.
Simply stated, when the 4th best card is led in a suit,
subtract the number of that card from eleven to determine the number of higher
cards in the other three hands.
Here is a hand that
shows how important it can be:
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Many
players would not agree with South’s opening bid but West was on lead and
started with the seven of spades.
Declarer ducked in dummy and with little thought, East won with the
ten. The defense was now over as West
had no entry to lead another spade through dummy. Let’s use the rule of eleven. If East just does the math (11-7=4), he can
see the other four cards and will realize declarer has no card above the
seven. He can now confidently play low
on the first round and West will retain the lead.
This is an
interesting hand so let’s take a look at three different results:
1. As above, West won the ten of spades and
declarer made the contract.
2. East applied the rule of eleven and ducked
the first trick. The defense took the
first four tricks but West exited with a heart and declarer made his contract.
3. East applied the rule of eleven and after
winning the third spade, cashed the ace of clubs, and then led his last
spade. Declarer was down one. A good player will help his partner.
SUMMARY
I’ve tried to present ten types of problems that occur frequently. I hope that the suggested solutions will help you improve your game. A final piece of advice is “Don’t just react,
stop and think!”.